Monthly Archives: February 2009

It’s raining and it’s the last day of February, so it’s not like you’ve got a lot to do at the moment.

Man, what’s gotten into Dennis Dodd? A well-researched article on the current Congressional follies regarding the BCS? Color me surprised and impressed. Best line was his advice for the Mountain West’s conference commissioner: “1) Visit while the lawmakers are actually voting on stuff; 2) Make your case to someone besides the appointment secretary.” True dat.

On the other side of the coin, Matt Hayes lives down to expectations with a “he’s tanned, rested and ready” piece about… Dennis Franchione.

A. J. Green isn’t worried about Joe Cox, or being double-teamed, either. He’s just trying to live up to the Ray Goff mantra of getting “buttah and buttah”.

It looks like the Brian Butler saga is going to continue on for a while. I have to admit I’m hoping that Bryce Brown confirms his verbal commitment to Miami when all is said and done, just so we can see what Randy Shannon does.

Basically, three assistants got sizable bumps – Garner, Searels and Bobo – and the rest received modest increases. (Cue the “Martinez is still the highest paid assistant!” angst now.)

What’s striking to me about these numbers is how carefully calibrated this appears. Georgia ranks fourth in the SEC in staff salaries, with an amount roughly the same as Florida’s, yet it’s clear from Evans’ quote that the recent runs made by Auburn and Tennessee at Searels and Garner factored into the math. And still no coach has been given a multi-year contract, even though it’s stated in the article that the assistants are desirous of that.

I’m glad to see it done, but I don’t see the pressure on Evans to keep the staff happy lessening any time in the near future. The flood of TV money and the pressure from underachieving programs in the conference will see to that.

Dontae Aycock speaks. The problem is that Dontae Aycock isn’t so good on the listening end. But he sounds happy with his fate and Paul Johnson got to make his point, so I suppose this wound up being a win-win situation in a perverse way.

“On an ethical level, it is preposterous, if not heinous, to have the football and basketball coach paid several times as much as the university president,” says Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College who is considered an expert on the economy of sports. “What message does that send to the students about the priorities of the school or the society?”

Andrew, I’ll get back to you about that when ESPN signs a deal to broadcast faculty meetings.

I evidently don’t share Mark Bradley’s value system, but all I can say is that anyone who can generate a list ordering the SEC coaches by level of obnoxiousness and rank Mark Richt as more irritating than Steve Spurrier really can’t expect to be taken seriously on any sports opinion he might offer going forward.

It’s one thing if Gator fans are whining because their school missed out on signing Aaron Murray and Orson Charles. But if Urban Meyer is this pissy about something like that, good grief.

And while we’re on the subject of the Gator Nation, +1 for this header.

ESPN.com’s college football meme of the week is reasons to love/hate college football. I’m not linking to any of their stuff, but in that spirit, here’s one reason why I really love college football.

Oh, and back to Orson Charles for a sec. If you’re wondering how Tennessee has managed to inject itself into the race for his commitment, maybe it’s because the Vols seem to be clearing the decks at tight end. If Junior doesn’t sign him, you wonder who’s left to man the position for the Urnge.

And a third Orson Charles note: ESPN’sBruce Feldman blogs that Charles, who is still considering UGA, has seen this article by David Hale or heard about it in one shape or another. However, Feldman doesn’t mention exactly who has brought it to the kid’s attention. Sometimes it’s not the tale but who does the telling that matters most.